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Educational Statesmanship in the 

South 



By C. ALPHONSO SMITH. Ph.D.. LLD. 

Dean of the Graduate Department in the 
Universitv of North Carolina 



Reprinted from the University Record, December, iW? 
Chapel Hill, N. C. 



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EDUCATIONAL STATESMANSHIP IN THE 

SOUTH 



BY C. ALPHONSO SMITH 



The significance of the present educational revival in the South 
cannot be understood if one confines his studj^ merely to statistics. 
He must get beneath statistics to certain underlying and out- 
working forces. He nuist realize at the outset that the public 
school in the South is no longer a mere recitation room but has 
become the arena on which vast civic problems are challenging 
each other to cond)at. The public school is the agency through 
which a newly awakened pul)lic consciousness is manifesting itself. 
Today, as never before, the South is looking to the pul^lic school 
to aid her in the solution of problems which a few years ago were 
regarded as the exclusive domain not of the sclu^ol but of the 
family, the church, the reformatory, the workshop, and the law 
courts. 

I congratulate the teachers of the South on this exaltation of the 
public school as the touchstone of our progress and the measure of 
our enlightenment. It lays upon us a constructive duty so wide in 
its scope, so vital in its relationships, that it is felt less as an 
imposed duty than as an inspiring opportmiity. The intense con- 
sciousness of this changed attitude toward the school has heartened 
the teacher, elevated the teaching profession through all its grades, 
inspirited the pupil, and given a sense of new and responsible 
proprietorsliip to the people at large. 

Men are beginning to realize that public education in the South 
embraces all the varied interests of democracy;- that it is the civic 
will organized for definite progress; that it is the cutting edge of 
the movement for civic puiity, moral orderliness, and economic 
eflSieiency. The South of our fathers found self-realization in ora- 
tory and statecraft The South of today is realizing herself in 



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'eaucation, an education vitalized i).v the prospect of industrial 
supremacy and by the vision of a returning national leadership. 

The leaders in the new movement are the teacher and the legis- 
lator. The one makes and organizes public opinion; the other 
recognizes and codifies it. The last democratic platfoi'ui of North 
Carolina, for the first time in the history of our State, so far as I 
know, acknowledges gratefully the civic service of the teacher: 
"And we further express our cordial commendation of the work of 
the teaching profession for the mental, moral, and material 
advancement of the people, and pledge for the future our l:)est 
endeavors to strengthen and increase the usefulness and eiiiciency 
of our whole educational system . ' ' 

Ex-Governor Aycock has declared that lai'ger crowds attende<l 
his educational addresses than attended his political addresses. 
These facts are deejoly significant. Thej^ indicate a new attitude 
toward public education, a new appraisal of the function of tlie 
public school, a heightened vahiation of the civic seivice of the 
teacher, and a deeper realization of the meaning of democracy. 

In other words the last thirty-five years have witnessed in the 
South the evolution of a new force which I shall call e<lucational 
statesmanship. It finds its truest exemplars in our pul)lic-spirited 
teachers, seconded by our wisest and most far-sighted statesmen. 
It believes in childhood as the most potential asset of a state, but 
it seeks not only to train this childhood but to shape public opin- 
ion. It does not believe that democracy is necessarily opportunity 
but that it may be made opportunity. It has wrought out mo- 
mentous tasks but has not yet received its merited due. In the im- 
minent future it bids fair to l)e the strongest single constructive force 
at Avork in the vSouth on the prol)lems of American democracy. 

II 

What has educational statesmanship in the South achieved? 
Its greatest achievement is that it has moulded public opinion to 
the conviction that education is a birthright of American citizen- 
ship. And this has been done in one generation: it has been 
done since 1870. The task was to democratize an essentially aris- 
tocratic society by means of a changed attitude toward the public 



THE UNIVKHSTTV RKOOIM) " 5 

school. That tlie task was diHicult, and that it has been accom- 
plisliod with astonisliiiig rapidity, may be seen by tracing the 
sloAV evohition in other sections of tlie eountr}^ of the same idea. 

At tlie meeting of tht> National Educational Association held at 
Asbur}' Park in July, 1905, I was deeply impressed by a state- 
ment made in a public address by Dr. Andrew S. Draper, Com- 
missioner of Education of the State of New York. "England and 
America," said he*, "in the fii'st half of the last century [that is, 
as late as 1850] were educationally nt)t so very far removed from 
the tinu's of Elizabeth." The position seemed extreme but fur- 
ther investigation has shown its easy tenability. New York City 
had no real public school system until after 1850. "It took from 
1803 to 1853," sa-ys Mr. Seth Low.t "for the City of New York 
to grow up to a pul)lic educational system as distinct from a pi'i- 
vate school system supplemented l)y a system of free education for 
the poor only." It was not until 1837 that Massachusetts organ- 
ized her first State Board of Education. At that time, "one third 
of the children within the State were without any school advan- 
tages whatsoever, while a lai'ge proportion of the remainder 
attended school but two or three of the winter months, oi- a few 
weeks in the summer. "t 

Tliere is a widespread belief that our American government was 
founded on the conviction that education at public expense was 
an inalienai)le I'ight of every citizen. It is far from true. This 
convictioii took root tardily and grew slowly. It is true that 
^Vasllington in his /''■//r »■('// .4f^(//r.« had said : "In proportion as 
the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is 
essential that this should be enlightened." It is true that Jeffer- 
son had said: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a 
state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." 

But in spite of these personal vicnvs of AVashington and .Jeffer- 
son the conception of public education as the only sure foundation 

*StH' Addresses and Proceedings of the National Educational Assoidation, 
V.m, p. 95- 

+See Proceedings of the Eiglith Conference for Education in the South, 
1905, p. 90. 

tDexter's Bhtory af KtJucalion in Ike United States, p. 100. 



,6 THE l^NIVERSITY RECORD 

for a demoeratic society was far fnnw being generally accepted. 
The colonists did not 1:)ring such a conception with them from 
Engkuid. It did not exist in England, nor was it one of the 
causes leading to our separation from England. There is no ref- 
erence to education in the Declaration of Independence or in the 
Constitution of the United States formed a few years later. The 
subject is hardly referred to in the congressional discussions of th« 
time, though the disputants were chiefly college men. Only five 
of the first constitutions of the original thirteen states contain any 
reference at all to education, the constitution of North Carolina 
lieing one of the five. 

National independence, then, did not reflect or inaugurate a 
national educational purpose. That purpose took shape gradually . 
It did not grow out of the theories of democracy but out of the 
practical workings of democi-acy as interpreted and modified by 
educational statesmanship. Every state had to find out for itself 
that political security and institutional integrity were directly 
dependent on the education of all the people. 

There is nothing more suggestive in our history than this proved 
dependence of democracj^ on public education. Democracy found 
in education not a luxury ))ut a life-preserver. Freedom from 
England ha<l not proved the panacea that the more ardent spirits 
of the time had hoped for. In spite of the church schools and 
private academies, in spite of the educative influences of law 
courts and political platforms, liberty was still in imminent dan- 
ger of becoming license. But in exact proportion as the inner 
meaning of democracy unfolded, the policy of public schools 
gained acceptance. The old state constitutions were remodeled, 
and the constitutions of the newer states made unexampled provis- 
ion for education. The free school ceased to be an experiment. 
It had established itself not only as an essential condition but as 
an organic part of triumphant democracy. 

Of course much remains to be done in the South to carry this 
conception of education into complete realization. But since 
1870, a tentative agitation has become a popular movement, and 
the movement has become a crasade. In the travail of these 
transitions educational statesmanship was born, and in their 
assured triumph it has won its first and greatest victory. 



THE IINIVEUSITY RECORD 7 

Til • 

The next victory won l)y odncational statesmnnshii) in the 
South was the proffer of the same sort of education to all classes. 
England, France, and Germany have "peasant schools" for the 
lower classes, and these schools do not articulate with the schools 
for the higher classes. The nations that make class distinctions 
in their systems of public education hold to the theory that lead- 
ership is the primal requisite of national well-being and that, 
inasmuch as leadership is necessarily limited to the few, educa- 
tional opportunity should be correspondingly limited. But it is 
precisely on the score of leadership that every system of educa- 
tion which confines its benefits to a class stands self-condemned. 
Russia predestines a privileged class to leadership, educates that 
fraction alone, and the result is not onh^ 95 percent, of illiteracy but 
a class of leaders whose leadership is most conspicuous in retreats. 
Japan offers equal opportunities to all, and the result is not only 
less than 10 per cent, of illiteracy but a class of leaders who, in 
field and hospital, have re-fashioned the art of war. 

The only way to be sure that you have the best leaders in any 
department of human effort is to give everybody an equal chance 
through education, to urge everybody to take his chance, and then 
by fair rivalry, by impartial choice, by the ultimate test of indi- 
vidual worth to see that the best man of all comes to the fore. 
What right has any nation to presume leadership in a privileged 
class of men and then to educate that class to the neglect of all 
others? Education is not meant to fit an individual into a pre- 
determined environment but to develop in him the ability to 
determine his own environment. 

It is this large conception of the function of public education 
and of the service of the public schools that distinguishes educa- 
tion in our land from that in other lands. America has no nobler 
achievement to her credit than is written in her public school 
system. England, it is true, has a lower rate of illiteracy than 
we have; but neither England, France, n(U- Germany has any- 
thing to compare with the American method of getting at true 
leadership by a system of public schoofe in which all classes have 
the same chance. Englishmen are fond of telling us that leader- 



8 THE UNIVERSITY HECOKD 

ship is innate, that all cannot lea<.l, that if two men ride a horse 
one must ride behind. Certainly, one must ride behind, but 
which one? The question reminds me of the darky who refused 
to get married because he knew that he and his wife would be 
always squabbling. "Why, Rastus," said a white minister, 
"that 's not the way it will be. When you get married you and 
your wife become one." "Yes, boss," said Rastus, "I kiKiws 
de two becomes one, Imt which one?" 

In America, wherever the public school system has had fair play, 
the rear rider rides l^ehind not because he has been trained for 
that predestined position Imt l)ecause the other man is the better 
rider. In England, France, and Germany he rides l)ehind because 
he was born behind and has been educated to do no more than 
hold his own. Does any man doubt which system in the long run 
is going to furnish the greater number of capable leaders? If his- 
tory teaches anything it teaches the inability of nations to pro- 
phesy the time and place of theii- leaders. Read once more the 
l(5th chapter of I Samuel: "Again, Jesse made seven of his sons 
to pass l)efore Bamuel. And Bamuel said unto Jesse: The Lord 
hath not chosen these. And Sanuiel said unto Jesse, Are here all 
thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, 
and, behold, he keepeth the slieep." Not even the father thought 
that under the garb of his ruddy faced shepherd-boy there beat the 
heart of the greatest king that Israel was to know. It is educa- 
tion today that is making the kings of the future out of the coun- 
try boys of the present. 

The service of education in giving an opportunity for leadership 
is interestingly illustrated by some statistics based on WIio '.s WJio 
in Americfi. These statistics were carefully gone over by govern- 
ment experts and sent out with the endorsement of Dr. W. T. 
Harris, Commissioner of Education. The results cstablisli the 
following conclusions : 

1. That from ISOO to 1870 the iiucdu rated ho]i in the United 
States failed entirely to become so notal)le in any department of 
usefulness and reputable endeavor as to attract the attention of 
the Who '.t Who editors, aiid that only 24 self-taught men suc- 
ceeded. 



THE UNIVERSITY UECOUl) 9 

2. Tliat a l)()y with oiily a comiiioii-.^rhool education had, in 
round nund)ers, one chanee in i),()0(). 

o. That a liigh-xrhool training increased this chance nearly 
twenty-two times. 

4. That ro//r7/f education added gave the young man ahout ten 
times the chance of a high-scliool hoy and two lumdi'e(l times the 
chance of the l)oy whose training stopped with the common school. 

5. That the A. B. graduate was pre-eminently successful and 
that the self-edvrated man was inconspicuous. 

The more I reflect on Southern leadership before the war, the 
more astonishing does it seem. There were then four classes: 
1. An aristocracy of wealthy planters and slave-owners; 2. small 
farmers living chietiy in the hills; 3. poor whites of the low 
country; 4. slaves. The slave-owning class was much smaller 
than is popularly supi)osed, but out of that class the leaders were 
drawn almost exclusively. That the South without a jxiblic 
school system could hold her own so long in national leadership 
is a splendid prophecy of returning leadership when the rural 
public scho(il in the South shall have been mdre clearly recognized 
as the unit of progress and of pt)wer. The North was drawing 
her leaders from all classes while we were drawing ours chiefly 
from one class. Albion W . Tourgee declares in his FnnV^ Errand 
that leadership is innate in the South. I l)eg you to r<^'mend)er, 
however, that only education can take an innate (luality and 
make of it an effective force. 

Did you ever think of the pathos and tragedy of these lines in 
Gray's Elegji? — 



'Perliaps in this neglected spot is laid 
Some lieart once pregnant with celestial fire, 
Plands that the rod of empire might have s\vaye( 
Or waked to ecstasy the Hving lyre. 

But knowledge to tlieir eyes her ampk' page 
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll ; 
Chill Penury repressed their nobk' rage 
And froz(> the genial current of the soul." 



10 THE rxrVEKSITV ECORD 

As Gray viewed the mounds in old Stoke Poges cemetery the 
thought came to him that perhaps in those neglected graves there 
lay men whom education would have made into poets and states- 
men. Poverty, however, condenmed them to illiteracy, and their 
latent genius died with them. I never stand in a country ceme- 
tery in North Carolina ^\athout thinking of the possibilities of 
leadership in art, literature, statesmanship, and economic progress 
that have l)een forever lost to the State and nation. But, please 
God, the time is coming Avhen such tragedies shall not be enacted 
on North Carolina soil, when tlie "chill penury" of the individual 
shall be met by the enlightened generosity of the State, and when 
every child l)orn within our ])orders shall be given the opportun- 
ity to develop the plan of God inwoven in his being. 






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